Originally Posted by
fronesis
First off, great pics – looks like a gorgeous ride!
As to your thru axles: you mention a “lock,” but I’m not exactly sure what you are referring to there. I have thru axles on a few bikes, and my understanding is that the threaded “bolt” of the thru axle simple threads into the bike frame directly, and it is held in place there by being at the correct torque spec. So it’s never really “locked” in place or “unlocked” it’s either tight enough at its proper torque spec, or it’s LOOSE.
A few thoughts there:
1. By “lock” I suspect you might be referring to the quick-release like “lever” on the standard DT Swiss thru axles that came with the whip shot. It’s possible that somehow that lever is vibrating loose and this would obviously lead directly to a loose axle.
2. I HATE those thru axles because they make it impossible to know if you have the torque spec correct and because the extra force added by the lever makes it hard to always return to the same torque (which effects the caliper/rotor centering). Accordingly, I sold thus “quick release” thru axles on eBay and replaced mine with some really nice Robert’s Axle project axles. These tighten with a 6mm hex, so you can use a torque wrench on them and get the proper torque.
3. Note: the torque spec on most 12mm thru axles is quite high, around 15Nm or 132inch-pounds. I have encountered a number of riders who had loose thru axles because they didn’t tighten them enough. And I made the same mistake myself on my first thru axle bike: what feels “pretty tight” by hand for me was only around 80 inch-pounds. To get to 130 inch-pounds requires some real force (I’m weak).
Hmm. I'll need to check again. The ones that came with the bike kind of feel like you a) tighten them to "almost tight enough" with the lever in the "open" position, and then the last bit of pressure is applied by pushing the lever from "open" to "close" position, if it makes any sense. I definitely feel it "clamping" the frame tight when I close it. Just like the old "QR" style skewers. Maybe I'm very wrong, it happens fairly often ;-)
What I meant by unlock was that the lever flipped from what I consider the "closed" position into the "open" position, thus allowing the axle to slightly unscrew itself with vibration, as you've stated in 1.
I am looking at doing exactly what you did, replace them with a nice set of allen type axles, Wolf Tooth or something else. I bought a nice torque wrench, might as well use it!! My car rack allows me to put the bike on without having to remove the wheel so unless I puncture, I don't see the wheels ever needing to come off.